7 December — Daytona Beach – New Smyrna Beach, Florida
Over the past week there have been many changes to our schedule. First, we had planned to stay on the outside, meaning in 2 overnights we would be in Ft. Pierce and made marina reservations to accommodate. But, due to the forecast of unseasonal southerly winds during that time we opted to go inside on the ICW.
Due to the damage to many marinas and slips due to Hurricane Matthew we wanted to call ahead and plan where there might be room for us, and booked accordingly. As we continually get slowed down, that means regular phone calls to the next few marinas to shift our planned arrivals and departures. By the time we had it pinned down for when we would be arriving New Smyrna Beach, it was the only day that they had no availabilty. We had 3 options:
- Make a long day of it and go straight from Daytona Beach to Titusville, bypassing New Smyrna totally
- Find another marina with room — that took 3 phone calls on our part, but we were able to secure a slip on Ponce de Leon inlet 10 miles down the channel, which would make the next day’s run to Titusville a bit shorter
- Stay in Daytona Beach one more day and arrive New Smyrna on Thursday.
Weather is again looking dodgy for Friday, so wherever we spend Thursday we will most likely also stay Friday. Of the 3 locations, Titusville was the least desirable option for a two night stay, mostly because there is only one tiki bar style restaurant in easy walking distance and the rest are fast food – so maybe we will actually cook on board? What a novel idea.
We had planned for option 1 above, making the necessary marina reservations. Upon waking up, Bob decided he didn’t want to do the long day after all. So, we called to see if there was a last minute cancellation at New Smyrna Beach City Marina our preferred stop mostly because – you guessed it – many restaurant options. But, no joy, they were full and didn’t foresee any cancellations.
So then we called around to other marinas between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna, and found one that had just reopened after making repairs due to the hurricane and they had availability. Okay – so we’ll have an almost embarrassingly short day, but tomorrow will be that much shorter going to Titusville, so that was the plan.
We left Daytona Beach and continued to head south. When we were about an hour out, New Smyrna Beach Marina called to say they just received a cancellation and they have room for us for the night. Excellent — now time to make the other phone calls to cancel reservations and also make changes to existing ones for the change in plans. A never ending process it seems sometimes. The dock masters are beginning to recognize Christina’s voice on the phone as she calls almost daily to make changes for the next few stops.
The day was lovely on the water, seeing dolphins along the way as well as a few boats that didn’t fare so well with the hurricane.
We arrived at New Smyrna Beach City Marina, without incident and did indeed enjoy a lovely dinner in town.
Tomorrow we head to Titusville, Florida and will stay there for 2 nights.